Bethel Anime Club

You will all understand soon. Everyone will.

God is here…

No fear, I’ve purchased Full Metal Panic Fumoffu for hours of enjoyment this weekend (ok, maybe not hours)!  For some reason, it only cost me $31 at Best Buy, I hope that means it doesn’t suck.

Hey all–

Welcome back, and come one, come all to Interim Anime Club! We’ll meet at our usual time and place, starting tomorrow; if you’re around, you shouldn’t miss it! [Crud, two exclamation points in a row...] This interim, our Japanese theme will be Moe, an aesthetic I shall define at our first meeting. There are good and bad kinds of Moe shows, and we will be watching two very good ones. Behold, ye members of Anime Club, our lineup!

Kamichu! is the bulwark of this Interim period. Some of you may remember watching the first couple of episodes while I was in England, at which point it was agreed that the show would be a great interim diversion. This 16-episode series about the adventures of a girl who wakes up one morning and discovers she is a god is the perfect stress reliever: it’s cute, it’s funny, it’s extremely Japanese, and it even comes with an uplifting (yet not crass) message about becoming your own person. Our main goal is to finish the show, and I absolutely guarantee that no one will have an issue with watching four delightful episodes a night.

But wait! There’s more! After all, just four episodes of a series won’t get us through a whole meeting–so, for our light entertainment, I present Binchou-tan. A little-known short series that has a Cute Not-Creepy Moe mentality seeping out its pores, this slice-of-life about a little orphan (who wears a piece of charcoal on her head; I shall explain the Japanese pun) and her somewhat unusual friends should serve to fill us with happy sweet thoughts without actually clogging our mental arteries. And since it’s not licensed, its presence on the Anime Club server will console those unfortunately not around for interim…

Being a bit under some very sudden weather, my rhetoric may lack its usual vivacious pop–but I assure you that these shows will make you believe all over again in the power of innocent cuteness to save the world. I’ll see you all tomorrow night!

–Matthew

PS: Ka… mi… CHUUUUUUU!!!

Hey all– To our universal shock and horror the end of summer [rain, loss... scar, illness, arrival of winter... a bird?] is approaching, but Summer Anime Club will not give in without one last great hurrah! Thursday, August 31 is the last day before the school year begins (the 14th week of our aestival meetings) and thus, all of our summer series having been completed on the 24th of the same month, we shall be hosting dinner and a special meeting at our Vice-President’s apartment. (Originally to be my house, but he has a nicer sound system and more room.) Bethel shall provide a projector, my church shall provide a medium upon which to project, our Vice-President shall provide a location, I shall provide a real honest-to-goodness desirable Luxurious Prize for an enjoyable contest, and you shall–I hope–provide the warm bodies and friendly human spirits that are indispensable for such events. I mean, friendly human bodies and warm spirits. Um… whatever.
At any rate, a bit of actual interaction from you guys is required to make this happen. PLEASE RSVP and tell me –if you can come to the event (or even if you prefer another date) or if you are not certain that you can come –if and what you can bring in terms of tasty food / drink (your President highly encourages unusual foodstuffs, and he himself may in fact be bringing a medieval blankmanger–Melissa knows it’s good) –what your preference is in terms of viewing materials: we could watch a movie (I have many I’d like to do ["Star of Cottonland," "Princess Arete," an "Oseam"-"Spring and Chaos" combo] but I will bow to the will of the masses), we could watch a short OVA series (such as FLCL or Blue Submarine No. 6, one of which I believe our Vice-President wouldn’t mind doing if there’s enough of a contingent that hasn’t seen them many times already), or we could preview series for the school year and vote on which ones to continue watching (I’ve got a list of more than 30 that I really need to get narrowed down…) –if you’ll be bringing (and if so, how many you’ll be bringing) any friends, compatriots, henchmen, nemeses, etc. (I myself shall have my roommate along).
Your president is begging you to hit the reply button (oops–I mean, e-mail fismat@bethel.edu if you don’t want to send to the whole Anime Club), fill in as little as two or three sentences addressing the above items, and send your response! Non-responders will be assumed absences, so e-mail even if you’re not completely certain. Enjoy the cooler weather, I’ll see you next Thursday! –Matthew
PS: It has been brought to my attention that if you cannot access the episode summaries on our website, it’s because you’re using Internet Explorer (which doesn’t like our sub-menus). The solution is to go to Opera.com and get a REAL browser. (Firefox works too if you must use it.)
PPS: Since the assurance of a “luxurious prize” is not exactly comforting, I’ll just tell you that I have become a victim of my own stupidity and ended up with a redundant copy of the first Kamichu! DVD. It’s a really, REALLY good show (as those of you who saw the first episode last fall know), so I’m hoping for a really, REALLY fun contest to get it. Anyone who has any ideas should mention their brilliant stratagems in their RSVP. (How did that acronym get nouned, anyway? And isn’t “please RSVP” redundant?)
PPPS: Definitely on the agenda, possibly while we eat, are HYSTERICAL MUSIC VIDEOS! I’m going to try really hard to keep them Bethical, but since we aren’t actually at Bethel, and all the funniest ones are mildly dirty (not filthy, just slightly perverse), my sense of humor may win out over my conscience…
PPPPS: Your president notes that he has a tendency to mix up my subjects.
PPPPPS: OK, I only included that last one so I could beat Gandalf.

Hey all– Last week’s episodes of Tide-Line Blue and Mushishi are now available for download on the website. I’ve also managed to get up most of the synopses, including a particularly koan-like NieA_7 “Why I Love This Show” rant that serves as a direct follow-up to last week’s (except that this one’s not about me). Can’t wait for Thursday… people back from trips, slightly cooler weather than today, and *whisper of awe* Mushishi Episode 20. [Hmmn. I've built this one up so much I'm in danger of being lynched if everyone else doesn't agree on its greatness... or if people get sick of hearing about it before they've even seen it...] See ya! –Matthew

There was a brief outage on the site today due to a DNS problem.  After some re-configuration the DNS name seems to be functioning properly now.

-Matthew W

Hey all, your president and vice-president have finally met and combined the file resources of the former with the server access of the latter to get the episodes from last week uploaded to the web site. In addition, we have reached the halfway point of the summer(!) and thus have uploaded our SPECIAL TREAT, the file with the whole first half of Dogtato-kun! Catch up on the one episode you missed last week, and be sure to check out the ending song about Dogtato-kun’s tail, complete with a real life Dogtato-kun figurine (which I want).
See ye in a few hours!

Hey all!
Your president has returned and bears both an apology and a promise. The apology is for the summaries for last week: they don’t… really… exist. Because I didn’t get back until Monday and my schedule’s been full, there’s “pages” on the website where the summaries would usually go, but no more than two or three sentences of disjointed text. Oh well… full features return next week.
But tomorrow! Yes, tomorrow shall be a day of note: Dogtato-kun’s fansubbers will finally lose it and succumb to the urge to translate a vegitanimal’s name in an… ah… easily misinterpreted way (but remember, the show has absolutely not an ounce of perversion in it! honest! gulp); Yugo will discover that all is not well in Russian society, Joze, Tean, and Keel will all be reunited and Joze will try to KILL Aoi; Mayuki will continue her journey into depression while NieA remains oblivious to the point of cruelty (illustrating the thin/nonexistent line between comedy and pain); Miaka will try (and, if I may make one of my In-Fallible Fushigi Yuugi Predictions [an IFFY Prediction], fail) to readjust to life in our world; and Mushishi will cause me to vibrate my eyes wildly and foam at the mouth (of course, it always does that) by examining Spring and Chaos and the problem of forgetfulness.
Be there! You all must be there! Even my sister will be there! So there! Be!
–Matthew

PS: Hopefully downloads will go up tomorrow, assuming that your vice-president is at least partially recovered from having his wisdom teeth pulled. There will be a SPECIAL TREAT in the downloads this week!

Unfortunately it seems that having a webcam where Matt F. works is a volition of his privacy, and therefore a violation of the AUP.  So no more watching Matt F. do his work, I guess you will have to find other ways to entertain yourselves.

Hey all– Over the past week I’ve redesigned the way the series descriptions on the website work so that each week now has its own page–no more waiting forever for ALL the ridiculously large Mushishi pictures to load. If I have anyh “Why I Love This Series” riffs, they now appears as comments on the relevant week’s description. Furthermore, there is now a dedicated discussion page for each show, and we’ve gotten some excellent suggestions on the Series Suggestion page–check it out! Today, Mushishi gives an odd significance to an ink stone and a rogue tooth, the Enohana bath-house tries some very modern tricks to attract customers, two vegitanimals attempt to solve their personal issues, and Yugo’s fate REALLY gets decided. See you there! –Matthew
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Content preview: Hey all– Over the past week I’ve redesigned the way the series descriptions on the website work so that each week now has its own page–no more waiting forever for ALL the ridiculously large Mushishi pictures to load. If I have anyh “Why I Love This Series” riffs, they now appears as comments on the relevant week’s description. Furthermore, there is now a dedicated discussion page for each show, and we’ve gotten some excellent suggestions on the Series Suggestion page–check it out! Today, Mushishi gives an odd significance to an ink stone and a rogue tooth, the Enohana bath-house tries some very modern tricks to attract customers, two vegitanimals attempt to solve their personal issues, and Yugo’s fate REALLY gets decided. See you there! –Matthew